A painter living in the wilds of Yorkshire (Sheffield, so not really 'wilds' as such). Has been painting for 15 years, properly established in 2008.
Visit my portfoilio website at www.artbyandyonline.com

" . . . The 'obscure space'
embedded in what the enlightenment identifies as 'man's nature' is both
exterior to him and indispensable to him . . . The obscure spaces of the
metropolitan city, which are at once alien to the bourgeois city's
self-image and essential to its project of self-aggrandisement, are also shadows and blind stains."(Matthew Beaumont, "Night Walking", 2015, pg 113-114)

I'm taking this as suggesting that the hidden alcoves, the shadow
filled alleys are unavoidable. They are the flip side of the pristine
modern city, but the pristine modern city does all it can to disavow
that these places and spaces are needed.

These spaces, I'm at
times exploring, are the spaces that those that help maintain the bright
sparkly clean future city walk through. I'm thinking of the cleaners,
the shop staff, the security staff, the waste disposal people, the
delivery people all of whom use the spaces that we tend to want to pass
by and ignore.

These half lit spaces are often seen as edgy and
dangerous but these are the spaces that the workers of the city use.
Those folk that are the backbone, who exist both in front of and behind
the scenes to keep the spectacle of the modern city running. These
spaces hold the side/back door entrances, trade entrances, delivery
bays, places that obscure the to-ings and fro-ings of those that
maintain the facade of the bright clean city. These spaces are needed
and unavoidably exist in opposition to the supposed 'perfection' that
they help support.